On May 31, 1985 the worst tornado outbreak in Pennsylvania history occurred in terms of deaths and destruction. Thirty tornadoes hit PA, OH, and NY states (and 13 more in Ontario Province, Canada). Twenty of the tornadoes were rated F2 or higher, with six of those F4 or higher, including one F5. The F5 hit Sharon and Wheatland, PA -- the only F5 tornado in Pennsylvania history.

76 people were killed in the United States in the outbreak -- still the most for an outbreak since the April 3, 1974 Superoutbreak.

I did many of the damage surveys of the tornado paths in cooperation with the National Weather Service and the National Academy of Science disaster survey teams. The damage in the Wheatland-Sharon F5 area was shocking. Most chilling to me was the crushing of large petroleum storage tanks like they were empty soup cans. One was rolled over a building -- flattening it. Another was rolled across a roadway. Homes and industries were destroyed.

Another chilling tornado was an F4 that moved 65 miles uninterrupted up and down some of central Pennsylvania's most rugged terrain with a path more than a mile wide in spots. Every tree except for 2" diameter saplings was snapped or uprooted along much of the path, with the saplings permanently bent toward the ground. The trees were stacked on top of each other 10 feet high like huge piles of sticks in the game "pick-up-sticks."

I was watching our WSR-74C radar in the Penn State Department of meteorology. The radar had a little ball on it -- presumably caused by the trees being tossed up by the tornado.

I talked to the park attendant in Parker Dam State Park in the midst of that tornado. She said that the ground was shaking (from the falling trees) so bad that she thought her cabin (about a quarter mile south of the tornado damage) would collapse.

It was a drizzly Friday evening just before the tornado hit, so only 2 scouts and 3 scoutmasters had shown up thus far, and they were in a cabin at the park. I talked to them and they described what they saw as an avalanche of falling trees coming toward them. The trees bent over like they were touching their toes, and then snapped or were uprooted. One of the leaders was outside and ran into the doorway and held on tight -- being levitated like a flag by the tornado winds. Shielded by the tall trees surrounding it, the cabin was initially protected. But once the trees were all knocked down, the last gasp of the tornado ripped off the cabin's roof. None of the occupants was seriously injured.

Vortex2 has been busier than ever this year. It seems like there are operations everyday, which is a far cry from last year's historically slow severe season. Having said that, there hasn't been that classic supercell thunderstorm and tornado. Even Tuesday's success with the storm that produced as many as 5 brief tornadoes, V2 needs more. I know that sounds greedy, but it's reality. They team truly has just one full deployment on a lone tornado in Wyoming last June.

Alrighty then...let's review a fun chase on Tuesday, and on a personal note, a few milestones for yours truly. We were just chilling in Cheyenne Wells, CO waiting for something to happen, then all of the sudden, storms fired up and it was a mad dash to get ahead of them.

We could see a good supercell near Sharon Springs, KS and before we even got there, teams from V2 were reporting tornadoes. The tension level elevated a little at that point. We drove south of Sharon Springs to Tribune and waited there. The storm was still over the border in Colorado and slowly moving our way.

It looked intense even from afar. It eventually dropped not one, not two, but three tornadoes as we watched. The last one was almost right on top of us as we sat underneath the wall cloud. It couldn't have been more than 1/4 mile from were our cameras were rolling.

All of the tornadoes were weak and very brief. The last was on the ground for mere seconds.

It was a real thrill. It was the most tornadoes I'd ever seen in a single day and the closest I'd ever been to one.

The drive back to the hotel was rough. We ran into some serious hail, but no new windshield needed!

I found it quite ironic that we made our way back to Goshen County, Wyoming, the place where V2 found their only tornado last year. There was another storm to chase and one that quickly went tornado warned. The roads are a little sparse, so everyone knew deploying on this storm would be tough.

The supercell moved just north of Torrington into some wide open ranch land.

Our only shot was to take a north/south road that we were told was gravel. Here to find out it really was just dirt. The storm past in front of us and dropped some small hail and plenty of rain.

Do you know what rain does to dirt roads? You guessed it! It tuns them to mud.

Little did we know that the muddy road was also 15 miles long. Once we committed, there was no turning back. Luckily, all of our vehicles made it out okay, but it was a lot of slipping and sliding. Hey it happens when you chase. Tornadoes don't also travel down paved roads.

We never got to see a tornado, but I do have a new appreciation for the beauty of Wyoming.

Yes, because no matter what the forecast says or how much skill is involved or how well an outlook verifies, they're still useless in the sense that nobody can predict with confidence and accuracy exactly what will happen in any given community. The devil is in the details, and we don't know exactly what the outcome of the season will be in Houston or New Orleans or Miami or Myrtle Beach or New York City or any big city or small town between Brownsville, Texas and Eastport, Maine in the U.S., or for any given location in the world which is susceptible to tropical cyclones.

And if the 2010 Atlantic/Caribbean/Gulf season turns out to be a quiet one, or active but then they all go out to sea, then I'll still be squarely in the "useless" camp in every aspect.

NOT SO MUCH?

However, I am open-mined to changing my view on an issue given sufficient reason to do so, and this hurricane season represents a particularly interesting case.

Today, WSI (Weather Services International), one of The Weather Channel Companies (TWCC), upgraded its forecast for the total number of tropical storms during the 2010 season to 18. Looking at the historical records, that would make this a Top 5 season in that category. They are predicting 10 of those to reach hurricane strength and 5 of them to attain major hurricane (Category 3+) intensity, and a higher-than-average chance of the Northeast getting hit this year, putting that region on par with the landfall probability in the Southeast and Gulf.

Other seasonal forecasters are also predicting a very active season, and although nobody has gone so far out on a limb as to forecast 28 storms, comparisons are being made to the 2005 season.

I've not only been cynical about the skill and value of seasonal outlooks, but also the role of SSTs (sea surface temperatures). While certainly a factor, they seem to have been overrated, e.g. SSTs in the tropical Atlantic were well above average during the peak of the season in 2006 (nearly as much so as in 2005) and there was a much different outcome than in 2005.

This time, though, even my skeptical eyebrow is raised way up my forehead, and my eyes see valid reasons for the concern.

And as I noted in another recent blog entry, this is an "El Nino rebound" season; they have had a history of producing destructive landfalls.

2005 was one of those, with "neutral" conditions during the peak of the season following El Nino the previous winter, and also the water was much warmer than average in spring 2005 in the tropical North Atlantic region.

If 2010 is another hyperactive and disastrous season in the Atlantic basin, then the key signs I've mentioned as well as other factors will have led to forecasts which were able to correctly give an idea of what kind of season to expect. That's not useless for the insurance industry, for example.

We still can't have the specificity we'd like for the devilish details, though, and we hope that the relatively very quiet 2009 season doesn't lead to complacency this year, or when future seasonal outlooks predict a quiet season given that years which are inactive overall can still bring catastrophe such as Andrew in 1992.

That's why TWC's mantra has always been and remains: Be equally prepared everywhere every year.

Warning: I'm feeling ornery. And cynical and jaded. As the late, great blues musician Albert King once put it, "I'm getting old, and I get tired easily, and my bunion is hoitin'." Well, actually, although I did have a bunion, it has subsided, but there's something which I am getting real tired of and is causing my head to be hoitin'.

Other than being predisposed to headaches ever since my first winter as a professional meteorologist 27 (yikes!) years ago, why the throbbing pain?

Seasonal hurricane outlooks.

Those who have been readers of The Weather Channel blog since its inception know that this is not the first time I've written passionately about this topic; in fact I've posted on it starting in March 2006 and again during the '06 season and again at the end of it. In that entry posted a year ago today I also used a musical reference, concluding that "hopefully the public and the media -- to quote the title of one of The Who's most well-known songs -- won't get fooled again."

Well, along came spring 2007 and it was the same thing all over again, but even though I know I'm preaching into a mighty strong headwind, I figure it's worth at least one more try ... and there are some signs that the tide may be turning. As you'll see if you read on, the issues with seasonal outlooks are striking a chord these days, and, by the way, I had no idea Mike Bettes was going to post his own entry on the subject yesterday; I had already drafted this article, so I'm not just copying him nor did I have an intent to "pile on" to what he said!

Like him, though, with the 2007 hurricane season "officially" ending I've been thinking back on what the forecasts were for it prior to the start of the season, and what they were for the '06 season, and what happened back in 2005, and how there are more organizations and individuals getting involved in that game than there used to be.

And my head hurts when I think about how in general the media reacts with a frenzy when a seasonal outlook is publicly issued or updated, scrambling to go to press or air or online with the breaking news, like birds of prey on a fresh piece of meat, as if there had just been a major international incident.

(Although, in regard to those indications I alluded to above about winds of change, there are examples such as an Orlando Sentinel columnist who was so cynical he asked a couple of monkeys at a zoo for a long-range forecast, and a front-page story in the Miami Herald earlier this week on the accuracy of seasonal outlooks. The author of that article, Martin Merzer, senior writer and hurricane beat reporter at the Herald, subsequently told me the following on the record, which is remarkably similar to what I had already written in my draft and is in the previous paragraph: "What I didn't have room to discuss in that piece was the contribution, so to speak, of the media. The problem: Too many elements of the media -- including but not limited to local television and radio stations -- breathlessly report each iteration of these seasonal forecasts as if they were major news events and near-certainties, and without referencing prior outcomes or highlighting the distinctions between seasonal forecasts and operational forecasts.")

My head also hurts when I think about a recent article which was on another Florida newspaper's website that correctly took to task one of the forecasts for this season, but then states that the same forecaster's seasonal predictions of hurricane coastal targets for all other years of the past five have been correct. (Not.)

My head hurts when I think about how underdone the seasonal outlooks were in 2005.

My head hurts because even when outlooks get some numbers right in a given year, I think about how little that can matter. For example, in response to the Miami Herald article a participant in an online weather forum exclaimed a few days ago that one of the forecasts for 2007, which gave ranges rather than single numbers, was "OUTSTANDING" (their caps). Indeed, some of the seasonal outlooks this year were better than in the past couple of years in terms of the prediction of the total number of named storms ... BUT THEY FAILED TO CAPTURE THE MEANINGFUL DETAILS OF THE SEASON, and thus I think about HOW USELESS THEY WERE. AGAIN.

Each season has its own "footprint" with which it leaves its mark upon those in or not in the cyclones' paths and by which it's remembered long after the season is over, and historically there has been a wide variation in the amount and type of impacts in any particular country for a given total number of storms.

...

So again, you tell me: to what extent did the various outlooks correctly predict the results of these patterns: the Gulf Coast onslaught in 2005, no U.S. hurricane landfalls in 2006, and the quirkiness of 2007?

Not only that, but even within relatively identifiable and persistent overall patterns there are those atmospheric subtleties I mentioned above which can translate into significant differences in the outcome, such as T.D. 10 innocuously moving onshore vs. T.D. 9 & T.D. 13 sprouting from depressions to hurricanes with phenomenal rapidity immediately prior to landfall, or in 2005 Hurricane Rita sparing Houston but devastating places not far away. Those are examples of things that are difficult to predict days ahead of time (or in the case of Humberto and Lorenzo, hours), much less months in advance!

That all having been said .... let me make some other things clear:

I have no issue with people endeavoring to make accurate hurricane outlooks on a seasonal basis, as long as the science involved is sound and claims of verification are legitimate. There's been great research done over the years in improving our knowledge of the meteorological and climatic factors which influence the outcome, and I have a lot of respect for the people involved and their work. That quest for understanding should continue because although the smallest-scale details will always be impossible to predict very far in advance, being able to consistently forecast with a meaningful degree of accuracy and precision the overall character of a season -- the total number of storms and hurricanes as well as measures such as ACE and NTC which include total intensity and duration, plus the patterns represented by the maps above -- would be of benefit to society.

Furthermore, I have no issue with publishing one's work on this topic in a scientific journal, or companies or individuals providing predictions for paying customers (in which the value of the forecast is determined by those businesses and clients!). Nor am I in any way suggesting restriction of freedom of the press to run with the story if they want to, or for that matter that anybody with a computer and an Internet connection shouldn't be free to "publish" their forecast on the Web. After all, I'm able to state my points of view in TWC's weather and climate blogs. And, as evidenced by comments I've received, things I've written at times have, uh, given some people headaches (and that might now include this entry)!

As such, I'm also free to publicly yearn for the day when those who produce seasonal hurricane outlooks don't accompany such issuances with big press release splashes, and hope that in turn every newspaper and website and radio station and TV outlet will take a deep breath, and recognize the severe limitations of the current state of the science in this regard, and think twice about giving those predictions the kind of headline-grabbing attention that's currently being provided to them. And -- since I know the old saying about people in glass houses -- yes, it's only fair that I also say I wish that included The Weather Channel.

I'll keep this short and sweet because the pictures tell a better story than my words ever could. One of our more recent chases put us in the panhandle of Texas. A massive supercell developed near Dumas. It was a slow-mover that Vortex2 deployed on early.

We were in a great position to see every part of its evolution. I even got a chance to check out the data coming in on the phased array radar while it was scanning. That was cool. Dr. Howie Bluestein also gave his analysis live on the air during the storm...sweet!

The supercell cycled many times and eventually produced a rain wrapped tornado near Stinett, TX.

V2 deployed 3 separate times and got some pretty good data, though not that classic isolated tornado they've desperately wanted. having said that, the storm was awesome to look at and had that beautiful space ship appearance. Here's to the next UFO invasion!

Let me begin by saying this, despite what you may have heard, nothing good can come out of hail. Have you ever wondered why chasers drive beaters? They're not stupid. They know that big hail can do a number on your car.

Anyway, we were on a storm in New Mexico in an area with a sparse road network. It was nearly impossible to get in the right position to intercept the supercell. We went down a road that took us right into the heart of the storm. At first it was just rain, followed by small pea sized hail. No big deal at first, then came the big show. The golf ball and tennis ball hail absolutely pounded us!

The unfortunate result of that core punch was a dent car and a cracked windshield. The dents re no big deal, but it's tough to drive with a spidered windshield.

We made it to our hotel that night and already arranged for a mobile windshield repairman to pay us a visit in the morning. Next thing you know, we're in business again. Never a dull moment right? I think it's funny that the mobile mesonet teams actually have a budget for new windshields.

"Just thinking: will the oil spill in the Gulf have any impact on the upcoming hurricane season? I know hurricanes are like steam engines and feed off warm water, so will the oil spill choke that off, etc.?"

Indeed, it has been hypothesized that coating the ocean surface with an oily sheen could lessen the intensity of a hurricane by reducing evaporation and in turn the storm's energy supply.

But what about in practice?

My response to the email was:

"Good question. The answer: if you're a resident along the Gulf Coast, don't bet on the oil spill being something that will protect you from hurricanes."

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I agree that an existing tropical storm or hurricane would likely be unaffected by the presence of oil on the portion of the ocean surface over which it is passing. Among other factors, such a cyclone would keep the water rather churned up and would cause mixing from beneath the surface.

The oil would also seem unlikely to hinder the formation of a tropical cyclone, mainly because chances are that any tropical cyclone that forms will do so in some place that the oil is not. Also, at present the oil slick is relatively small compared to the size of most tropical systems. The slick would probably have to get a lot bigger, and at high concentrations, to affect the formation of a tropical cyclone, and only if the cyclone was trying to form right over the oil slick.

Even without the oil, the extreme northern Gulf is not the most common location for tropical cyclone formation. June tropical storms are fairly common in the Gulf, but they tend to form in the southern Gulf or western Caribbean, and then often move north toward the northern Gulf. So it would not be surprising for an early season tropical storm to move into the Gulf and over whatever oil is there. Let's hope not, but if that happens, it would certainly have an impact on where the oil goes, including perhaps pushing it into coastal areas that it otherwise might not go. And it would certainly impact response activities to mitigate the impacts of the spill. Even just the threat of a tropical storm could do that.

Next week I'm headed to the American Meteorological Society's hurricane conference, where I'm sure this topic will be discussed by scientists with a variety of areas of expertise, including some air-sea interaction experts. I'll update everyone here on what I learn when I return.
>>>

Dr. Knabb is back from the conference this week (he'll soon be set up with an account and be able to post his own blog entries!), and he said that there was nothing presented or discussed at the conference which was contrary to the analysis above. A bigger topic of conversation was, as reflected in a USA Today front page article today, what a hurricane could do to the oil rather than vice versa, as well as the fact that there's a whole lotta oil lurking underwater, not just what is seen on the surface.

In addition to what Rick noted above, I'll chime in my $.02 about the upcoming season and the fueling of hurricanes by warm water ...

What's going on in the atmosphere in and around a tropical cyclone (e.g. wind shear and stability) is more important than the temperature of the water underneath one. We've seen plenty of them strengthen while moving over cooler water (even outside the tropics) or weaken while moving over warmer water, and during the peak of the hurricane season, the Gulf, Caribbean, and tropical Atlantic are warm enough to support tropical cyclone development and intensification.

That having been said, and everything else being equal, how warm the water is can be a supportive or inhibiting factor for individual cyclones and for the season as a whole. And on that note, there's been a big change in the SST (sea surface temperature) departures from average in the Gulf, which were running far below average during early spring. The oil might be affecting the satellite's precise measurement of SSTs, but there's no significant difference evident on this image between where the oil is and is not present, and anyway the oil is covering a very small fraction of the Gulf's surface.

Looking at a wider view, we see that SSTs in nearly the entire zone from the Gulf and Caribbean on east are warmer than average, and in particular the tropical Atlantic is waaay above average.

The "TNA" (Tropical North Atlantic) index is a measure of SSTs in that region. Data since 1948 indicate that the current level has smashed the previous record, and the graph below of the past few decades helps illustrate that. The previous record positive departures were in March 1969 and May 2005, and both years went on to have active and destructive hurricane seasons.

Meanwhile, we're transitioning out of El Nino, and as I blogged recently, "El Nino rebound" seasons in the Atlantic basin tend to be dangerous.

Those are two key reasons why most seasonal forecasters are sounding the alarm about the 2010 Atlantic season.

Hopefully that'll be a false alarm, but the focus at this time of year, regardless of the seasonal outlook and even without the oil as an additional concern, should be on preparedness. We can't predict ahead of the season the details of exactly where each tropical storm and hurricane that does form will go. So if you live along the Gulf coast or on the Atlantic side or in the Caribbean region, now is the time to have a "hurricane plan" ready, rather than waiting until the last minute, just in case your community is threatened this year.

Computer forecast models are showing low pressure developing over the subtropical Atlantic early next week and heading toward the coast of the southeast U.S. There's an outside chance that the system becomes a [sub]tropical storm. Even if not, this serves as a reminder that it's just a matter of time before the first named storm ...

Our travels have plopped us right in the heart of the Texas Panhandle and Lubbock.

I had never been to Lubbock, home of Texas Tech University and the Ka band radars and Sticknet teams that are a large part of VORTEX2. Ironically, while we were in Lubbock, the city was commemorating the 40th anniversary of the F5 tornado that struck downtown, killing 26 people and injuring more than 1500. On of the more fascinating stories was about the NTS building. It's 271 feet tall and the tallest building known to withstand a direct hit from an F5 tornado.

If you stand next to the building and look straight up you can see how it bows out at the top. Its offset by about a foot. Thy were going to demolish it after the tornado, but it was determined that it was structurally sound and is in use today.

Lubbock isn't all about tornadoes. You can have a lot of fun here too.

Our crew had a great dinner at Orlando's. It's a terrific little Italian place on Avenue Q. After dinner we met up some of the V2 scientists at Crickets.

It's a cool place on TTU's campus where everyone goes. Good times playing foosball and hanging out.

I had an exciting time last week chasing storms and tornadoes with Mike Bettes and the VORTEX2 research team. The plan was for me to leave the TWC studio and join them for about a week out in Tornado Alley. By Friday it had become clear to me that there would be a tornado outbreak on Monday May 10, so off I headed on Saturday to join TWC's "Great Tornado Hunt." I met up with them in Amarillo.

We were a team of 7, including me, traveling in three vehicles, shown below. Mike and I were in the black van along with our cameraman, and the white truck with the dome is our satellite truck that sends our signals to a satellite to be relayed back to TWC.

As a research colleague of many of the VORTEX2 scientists, I was allowed to attend the morning weather briefings and principal investigator meetings where the preliminary operating plans for the day and the following day were drawn up. On Sunday, they decided to make it a travel day to prepare for the tornado outbreak on Monday. We headed to Perry, OK for the night.

As storms began to develop on Monday we repositioned at Stroud, OK, then headed south to intercept the tornadic storms coming east from Moore and Norman. Unfortunately, the area had a lot of trees, so we were having a hard time finding an open area where we could see - and one of the University of Massachusetts radars could openly measure -- the tornado. Our first stop was an open field, but there were still trees obstructing our view and a lot of cloud-to-ground lightning forced us to abandon that position.

After some frantic searching for an open spot, we finally came to one and -- WOW - there is was! We saw a cone-shaped tornado below a well-defined wall cloud, with initially a possible satellite tornado beside it. By the time we got our vehicle stopped past the next tree obstruction, the possible satellite tornado was gone, but we watched a wide cone or wedge tornado a couple of miles from us (below). It was a tornado near the Shawnee Reservoir area that has now been rated EF3 by the National Weather Service. Several homes were destroyed except for interior walls and a railroad box car was rolled 300 yards.

As we watched, rain began to wrap around the tornado and then moved over us, with gusty winds. This was the rear flank downdraft that choked off the tornado. This tornado was part of the tornado family (sequence of tornadoes from the same supercell thunderstorm) that included the Moore tornado. We headed off to try to find a new vantage point for spotting additional tornadoes, but decided that at the 55 mph speed they were moving, we'd never catch them. So we headed toward Moore and Norman to try to broadcast damage video back to TWC.

We didn't get far before we came across a path of tornado damage near Tecumseh as several high-tension towers were downed by the EF3 tornado (see below).

We moved farther west and came across the Country Boy grocery store (shown below) that was heavily damaged in Little Axe, an east suburb of Norman. Damaging winds at the site came from all directions, with the strongest winds from the west, but strong inflow winds came from both north (pushed in walls of the store) and south (downed a cell tower), and even winds from the east downed gasoline pumps. Several vehicles were overturned in the parking lot. Customers and employees took shelter in the meat locker and were unharmed. The grocery store area was hit by both an EF2 and an EF4 tornado!

We were the first media to arrive at the Country Boy location, and it was a wild scene with law enforcement, fire trucks, and emergency vehicles everywhere, and racing back and forth along the highway. An ambulance had to stop suddenly down the road and itself slid off the road into a ditch.

On Tuesday Mike and I web chatted with some of you, then headed to west-central OK, but the initial storms were rather narrow and didn't produce a tornado. The storm below has actually lost its low-level inflow and is just a plume of previously warm air that is now floating aloft into that impressive anvil. Around sunset a storm did produce a tornado that VORTEX2 was able to measure well north of our location.

On Wednesday May 12 we were still in western Oklahoma, and caught a storm that had been embedded in a line. But it began to rotate and move to the right (east) of the rest of the line, so we moved closer to see if it would spawn a tornado. We watched a wall cloud drop down, but no tornado (center, below).

This storm was a high-precipitation supercell, with a massive rain shield, and quickly became dominated by the outflow from that rain area. Its gust front -- marked by a shelf cloud (above the arrows below) -- came charging toward us and we captured its passage on camera.

Whale's Teeth -- hanging down just east of the rain, where inflow air is lifted over the rain-cooled outflow flowing from left to right.

Once the shelf cloud passed, the scene was like what it must look like inside a whale's mouth, which is what storm chasers call it. Off to the east you can see the low-hanging shelf cloud -- the whale's teeth (above the arrows in the photo above). Then overhead you see the turbulent top of the gust front separating warm air from the rain-cooled air below. It has that corrugated look like the roof of a mouth.

Whale's Mouth -- behind (left of, west of) the rain area above, showing the turbulent motions on the top of the rain-cooled air behind the gust front

By the time the shelf cloud passed us, we were too far behind the northeast, rotating side of the storm to catch up, but it produced a tornado measured by part of the VORTEX2 team.

It was good to get together with some of my colleagues, including famous tornado chaser and researcher Dr. Howie Bluestein (below). The VORTEX2 squadron of vehicles (second picture below) and equipment made quite an impressive scene for residents, with just a portion of the fleet shown below prior to our Wednesday deployment. To them, we were like the circus that had come to town! But, of course, for the VORTEX2 team the mission was to collect important data needed to tackle remaining mysteries of tornado formation and structure.

It was a long, late ride Wednesday night to Wichita Falls, Texas. On Thursday morning, facing a couple of days ahead with a low chance for a tornado, it was back to the TWC studios in Atlanta for me after an exciting visit to Tornado Alley.

The past week has been incredibility active for V2. It all started Monday with the outbreak in Oklahoma and Kansas. We witnessed an EF-3 just west of Shawnee, OK. Very impressive! The damage was quite extensive all around Oklahoma City. It was a very difficult operations day for V2. The tornadoes were quick movers(50+mph) and hard to keep ahead of. Plus, there was a lot of traffic because it was rush hour and there were a ton of trees. Parts of V2 were able to sample a tornado in Seminole.

Tuesday took us to Cordell, OK. Storms fired and produced a possible funnel near Watonga at sunset. Daylight was not on our side that day. The storms seemed to rain themselves out before they could really get going.

Wednesday we traveled from Weatherford, OK to Elk City. We witnessed a supercell in Willow. It never produced a tornado where we were, but did drop one in Clinton that moved over Weatherford with a debris cloud. Ironic, that if we had just stayed in Weatherford that morning, we wold have seen the tornado. Again, it happened right at sunset and we and most of V2 ended up behind it and didn't see it. It was a long drive to Wichita Falls, TX that night to the hotel.

Thursday was a long travel day to Midland, TX. It's a nice town. They were setting up for an Arts Festival that began Friday. Unfortunately, the storms the next day would flood downtown and washout the festival. Tragically, a woman died in flash flooding in Midland.

Friday we headed west to Monahans, TX and the storms got going early much to our demise. We ended up being behind just about everything. We missed the tornado near Notrees by about 5 miles. The group from Michigan/Texas Tech was right on it and got great video! We got golf ball sized hail where we stopped.

Storms looked like they were becoming outflow dominant and dying, but then all of the sudden, they started moving south of I-20 and gained strength. We moved into Cane, TX and the storms went tornado warned, but we never saw a funnel. The wall cloud was descent and we got some small hail, but no tornado.

It was back to Midland for the night. We ate at a nice steak house. Texas Tech/UofM were there eating too. It was our first sit-down dinner in 6 days. It was nice.

Saturday we made the very long drive to New Mexico. I had never been to the Land of Enchantment, so I got to cross another state off my list (just 9 more to go). The storms fired up off the mountains, but shear was weak and the moisture was lacking some. Vortex 2 deployed on the only storm in the area, in Artesia. It had a thunderstorm warning but didn't produce a tornado. Still, it was an text book deployment for V2. It was a long 3+ hour drive back to Midland to the hotel. We got in around 1:00am.

Sunday was a short travel day from Midland up to Lubbock. I am going to write a separate blog about that. This one is getting a little long.

Anyway, so far so good. V2 is getting good data and they weather is cooperating for them this year. Stay safe everyone!

The tornado outbreak this past Monday was a real eye opener for me. When you're out chasing, you sometimes get so caught up in the moment that you forget about the human toll tornadoes can take.

Despite the hills and numerous trees, we were able see a wedge tornado near Shawnee, OK. It was a real rush to see it, but I got an uneasy feeling because we were in a populated area with a lot of homes and businesses. Needless to say, the families of tornadoes spawned that day did some serious damage all across the Oklahoma City metro area.

After witnessing the tornado, our crew headed toward Norman. On the way, we saw some twisted high tension towers that were knocked down and twisted.

A little farther down Highway 9 we saw major damage at the Country Boy grocery store. There were first responders everywhere. I soon learned that everyone in the store was alright thanks to the quick thinking of a sheriff's deputy, who ran into the store to tell them the tornado was coming. All of the customers and employees took shelter in the stand-up freezer.

I talked with a young woman named Kelsey, who works at the store. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were swelled from crying. I can't imagine how scared she must have been when that tornado hit. I just wanted to give her a big hug and tell her everything was going to be okay.

We learned from the Sheriff that several people were injured in that area and unfortunately, one person lost their life. It's situations like this, that give Vortex 2 scientists that much more motivation to study tornadoes and try to implement an early warning system. That way, everyone can find safe shelter in plenty of time. That's their ultimate goal and I applaud them.

The running joke among the VORTEX2 scientists is that the millions of dollars being spent on the project is actually money well spent because they've successfully managed to suppress nearly all tornadoes in Tornado Alley. Last year, as you might remember, V2 saw only 1 tornado in 5 weeks. It was a historically low period. 8 days into the project this season, and they've seen none. There have only been two very brief tornadoes in Kansas since May began. It's just unheard of! In fact April, May, and June are considered the peak months for tornadoes, but this year the numbers are way down. That's great, but not if you're trying to conduct tornado research.

I know we shouldn't be rooting for tornadoes, and we're not, but they are a necessary evil for the researchers who are trying to better understand them and create a better warning system. I look at it this way, an Oncologist doesn't root for patients to get cancer, but patients do get cancer, and doctors study them in hopes of eventually finding a cure. It's the same with VORTEX2.

Monday looks to be the most active day of the experiment so far. Dr. Greg Forbes has joined us in Texas to offer his expert analysis on operational days. Don't forget you can sign up for free text alerts from The Weather Channel and be instantly notified when V2 deploys on a supercell. You'll be able to watch it live on TV and on weather.com. Text the keyword VORTEX to 44636. Standard messaging rates apply.

Vortex 2 has had a few down days to start their research this year. All of the action was in the Lower Mississippi Valley, well east of where they operate. Our TWC crew headed over to Little Rock to check it out.

There were a ton of tornado warnings, but(thankfully) very few actual tornadoes. This is one of the goals of V2, to reduce the amount of over warning.

Now all of the various teams from V2 have assembled and are making their final tweaks to their equipment before a possible deployment later this week. Monday was a travel day to Woodward, OK. Setting up here allows the team to head to Eastern Kansas or Eastern Colorado, which look to be the "hot spots" if you will, for Thursday.

There are a lot of familiar faces and a few new ones to. Throughout V2 you'll be able to read blogs from the Teams from Texas Tech, Penn State, and the University of Oklahoma. They'll be posted right here, so keep checking back for the latest entries. Texas Tech is operating the Ka band radars and the Sticknets, Penn State is operating the Mobile Mesonets, and OU is operating various things, but mostly Mobile Dopplers. They all should be able to provide you with some very unique perspectives about the research.

On each of the past two Saturdays it seemed like all of the conditions were coming together for a significant tornado outbreak. Saturday April 24 brought about 40 tornadoes including an EF4 that moved from northeast LA across Yazoo City and Weir MS on a 149-mile path, leading to 10 deaths in MS. Saturday May 1 brought about 20 tornadoes, including a two that killed 4 people in MS and TN. Not as bad as expected.

And on the most recent Saturday, there were a lot of supercells in AR that didn't spawn tornadoes, despite looking impressive on radar. I've shown below pairs of radar reflectivity and velocity images for the Yazoo City tornado on April 24 and for a supercell on May 1 that so far has did not have a reported tornado.

April 24, 2010 Yazoo City radar and Doppler velocity

May 1, 2010 supercell in Monroe County AR radar and Doppler velocity

If you look just at the reflectivity patterns, the one from May 1 in Arkansas actually looks a little more like a classic supercell. It has its lavender hail core north of its hook. The Yazoo City supercell is a little more ragged and doesn't have that lavender hail core. It does, though, have that lavender ball-shaped debris echo that is caused by the debris from the tornado in progress. Comparing the Doppler velocities, it's easy to see that the rotation was MUCH stronger in the Yazoo City storm.

Why does one supercell develop strong rotation and spawn a 149-mile EF4 tornado while another may not even spawn a tornado? That's actually the question that the VORTEX2 project hopes to solve. They are out again in tornado alley this May and June with an army of equipment and scientists to take the measurements needed to answer the question.

My own working hypothesis is that the difference had to do with the humidity environments of the two storms. The most recent storms were part of a system that brought record rains and flooding to Nashville and other parts of middle and western Tennessee. It may have had such a warm, deep, high-humidity layer that instability was a little lower -- particularly at low altitudes in the storms.

That warm, moist, very humid air may also not have had left enough dry air near and below cloud base to give adequate rear-flank downdrafts. One of the hypotheses to be tested in VORTEX2 is that those downdrafts -- on the west and south side of the hook echo -- are critical to bringing down to the ground some of the mid-level rotation. That rotation then gets concentrated into the tornado. Preliminary results indicate that if the downdraft is either too warm or too cool, it may not be right for tornado formation. It's the supercell tornado version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears!

Too bad VORTEX2 couldn't have studied the past two weekends. But Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi have too many trees and hills that block the low-level radar beams. Without that data, you can't study tornado genesis. They need to have unobstructed views of the tornadoes, so they will have to wait for some storms to come to the prairies of the Southern and Central Plains.